Introduction High serum uric acid due to improper dietary intake has been identified to associate with painful gouty attack. This study investigates the relationship between point-of-care testing in uric acid and the dietary pattern among participants attending the 2014 Vegetarian Festival in Hong Kong. Method A cross-sectional study was conducted using questionnaire to collect demographic data and dietary pattern of the participants. Point-of-care analyzer was used to measure their serum uric acid. Data was analyzed by descriptive and non-parametric statistics. Results A total of 94 health seekers participated in the study. A prevalence of high POC-UAs was identified among these participants (14.9% (14/94)); non-vegetarians (18.5% (12/65)) tended to have a higher proportion of high POC-UAs compared to vegetarians (7.1% (2/28)); half of these participants with high POC-UAs had obesity 23.5% (4/17) and 1-3 chronic diseases (53.3% (8/15)). The POC-UAs of those having 1-3 chronic diseases 53.3% (8/15) were also significantly greater than those of a single chronic disease 25.0% (1/4) (Χ²=26.769, p<0.001). Discussion The findings suggested that Point-of-care testing can be an effective predictor of gout risk as most individuals may be unaware of their hyperuricemia condition because of asymptomatic at an early stage. Conclusion For a better control of hyperuricemia and prevention of acute gouty attack, health education with a convenient monitoring using Point-of-care method and dietary intervention is recommended.


We consider the reliable multicast transport protocols used in hybrid networks that include wired and wireless networks and transparent proxy servers in it, which cache multicast packets at the base station and perform local retransmissions across the wireless link. We present two extreme reliable multicast transport protocols, sender-initiated and receiver-initiated, and two analytic performance models supported and unsupported by transparent proxy servers in each reliable multicast protocol, and analyze the throughput of each model. Numerical results show that in any case the protocol with transparent proxy servers effect overall performance more than the one without transparent proxy servers, and furthermore the receiver initiated reliable multicast supported by transparent proxy servers gives better performance of total throughput than the one sender initiated reliable multicast. We provide efficiency criterion of the number of transparent proxy servers for each protocols for varying wireless loss probabilities.


Aim: We aimed to conduct a study comparing early outcomes of bilateral total knee replacement (BTKR) done in single sitting versus double sitting. Materials and Methods: The study included 58 patients who were already operated case of BTKR done in single sitting (sequential BTKR) – Group I (n = 30) and double sitting (staged BTKR) – Group II (n = 27), during time period April 2016 to May 2019. At follow-up, functional outcome in both the groups was assessed by Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis (OA) Outcome Score, Western Ontario and McMaster Universities OA Index score, and Visual Analog Scale scores. Results: The mean age in Group I was 64.5 ± 10.52 years and in Group II was 63.92 ± 5.76 years. The mean body mass index (BMI) in Group I was 28.42 ± 1.365 kg/m2, whereas the mean BMI in Group II was 29.19 ± 1.898 kg/m2. The mean length of hospital stay in Group I was 15.23 ± 2.921 days as compared to 23.69 ± 5.259 days in Group II. There was no mortality in both the groups within 90 days after operation in both the groups. There was significantly less requirement of hospital stay in Group I as compared to Group II (P = 0.001, Mann–Whitney U-test). Conclusion: We found that the single sitting BTKR is cost-effective and a relatively safe surgery. There was significantly lower length of hospital stay in single sitting BTKR along with no major complication in our study. Thus we advocate BTKR as a single sitting surgery with proper patient selection and preanesthetic workup.


In order to accelerate the electrification of the
automotive fleet, the energy density and power density limitations
of commercial Li-ion battery cathodes (layered LiMO2) must be
overcome. In this thesis, we use ab initio methods to gain critical
insights on two important classes of alternative Li-ion battery
cathodes, namely high-capacity Li-excess cation-disordered
rocksalts and high-rate LiFePO4 In the first part of this thesis
(Chapters 3 and 4), we provide the first voltage-based design rules
for high-capacity cation-disordered rocksalts. We demonstrate that,
depending on the transition metal species, cation disorder can
increase or decrease the average voltage of lithium transition
metal oxides, and hence increase or decrease the total energy
density of these compounds In particular, the disordered Ni3+/4+
voltage is found to be high (~4.4V), value at which it is likely to
be preceded by oxygen activity. We further investigate the effect
of cation-disorder on the voltage slope of lithium transition metal
oxides, which controls the total capacity accessible below the
stability limit of the electrolyte. We demonstrate that
cation-disorder increases the voltage slope by increasing the Li
site energy distribution and by enabling Li occupation of
high-voltage tetrahedral sites. We further demonstrate that the
voltage slope increase upon disorder is smaller for high-voltage
transition metals, and that short-range ordering and Liexcess
contribute in reducing the inaccessible capacity at high voltage
upon disorder. In the second part of this thesis (Chapter 5), we
resolve the apparent paradox between the high Li diffusivity in
phase-separating LiFePO 4 and the persistence of thermodynamically
unstable solid-solution states during (dis)charge at low to
moderate C-rates. We demonstrate that, even under rate conditions
such that relaxation to a two-phase state is kinetically possible,
the thermodynamically favorable state in a single particle is not a
sharp interface but rather a diffuse interface with an intermediate
solid-solution region that occupies a significant fraction of the
particle volume. Our results not only explain the persistence of
solid-solution regions at low to moderate C-rates in nano-LiFePO4,
but also explain the observations of stable intermediate
solid-solution states at an ac interface in particles quenched from
a solid solution.


ABSTRACT Affect and friendship change the way we think about research (epistemology) and conduct research (methodology). This article accounts for affect and friendship as feminist methods in peace research. It argues that affective feminist conversations, practices and actions through friendship can drastically modify how we think about peace. Based on fieldwork conducted in Colombia (2019 and 2022) with female ex-guerrilleras from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (Farc-ep), it (1) draws upon the concepts of camaradería and being insurgent proposed by the women of the Farc-ep to (2) trace how affect and friendship can change the way we do peace research. Ultimately, the article proposes four aspects for the adoption of friendship as a method in peace research by: 1) deconstructing the linearity in peace research methods; 2) multiplying data collection's methods; 3) including affects throughout the whole research process and 4) advocating for an insurgent peace research that vindicates long-term 'transversal politics' and translocal coalition-building.


DigitalBeing is an ambient intelligent system that aims to use stage lighting and lighting in projected imagery within a dance performance to portray dancer's arousal state. The dance space will be augmented with pressure sensors to track dancers' movements; dancers will also wear physiological sensors. Sensor data will be passed to a three layered architecture. Layer 1 is composed of a system that analyzes sensor data. Layer 2 is composed of two intelligent lighting systems that use the analyzed sensor information to adapt onstage and virtual lighting to show dancer's arousal level. Layer 3 translates lighting changes to appropriate lighting board commands as well as rendering commands to render the projected imagery.


This paper presents a new learning algorithm for the design of Mamdani-type or fully-linguistic fuzzy controllers based on available input-output data. It relies on the use of a previously introduced parametrized defuzzification strategy. The learning scheme is supported by an investigated property of the defuzzification method. In addition, the algorithm is tested by considering a typical non-linear function that has been adopted in a number of published research articles. The test stresses on data-fitting, function shape representation, noise insensitivity and generalization capability. The results are compared with those obtained using neuro-fuzzy and other fuzzy system design approaches.


The functional connectivity of various brain regions has been studied here using the knowledge from two different scientific fields. The methods of Synchronization Likelihood (SL) and network theory are applied to magnetoencephalography (MEG) data in an effort to study the brain as a complex network. In this paper the SL method has been used to characterize the functional interactions as ''functional connectivity'', by performing measures of statistical interdependencies between brain activity signals. The underlying assumption is that such correlations, at least in part, reflect the functional interactions between different brain regions. Methods applied in this study investigate the occurrence of small-world phenomenon in MEG data by considering the application of the SL method and the characterization of the respective graphs obtained by varying the threshold T. The data set used here is from a single subject performing a yogic breathing exercise. In the results we show how we are able to characterize and differentiate the different phases of the breathing exercise by using the index σ that defines the presence of a small world network, along with other network parameters that include the clustering coefficient, the characteristic path length, and the nodes degree.


Objective. To evaluate the effect of a tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) inhibitor (etanercept) on innate inflammatory and Th17 cytokines in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods. Serum samples were collected from 40 patients with active RA refractory to conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs who initiated therapy with etanercept plus methotrexate (MTX). Treatment response was assessed at Week 24 according to the European League Against Rheumatism response criteria. Serum levels of interleukin 6 (IL-6), TNF-α, IL-32, IL-23, IL-17A, IL-21, and IL-22 were measured in patients with RA and 25 healthy controls. Results. Patients with RA had increased levels of IL-6 (p < 0.001), IL-32 (p < 0.001), IL-23 (p < 0.001), and a trend toward increased IL-21 in the sera compared to controls. At 24 weeks' posttreatment, followup serum samples of etanercept responders had decreased levels of IL-6 (p < 0.001) and increased IL-21 (p < 0.05) and IL-32 (p < 0.001), while there were no differences in cytokine levels in non-responders. Serum IL-6 levels were positively correlated with levels of erythrocyte sedimentation rate (r = 0.458, p < 0.01), C-reactive protein (r = 0.593, p < 0.01), and 28-joint Disease Activity Score (r = 0.432, p < 0.01) at baseline. Serum IL-21 levels were positively correlated with levels of rheumatoid factor (r = 0.513, r = 0.633, both p < 0.01) and antimutated citrullinated vimentin antibodies (r = 0.515, p < 0.01; r = 0.428, p < 0.05) at baseline and after 24 weeks of treatment with etanercept. Conclusion. Multiple inflammatory pathways contribute to persistent chronic inflammation in RA. In contrast to nonresponders, etanercept therapy modulated serum cytokine levels and caused a marked decrease of IL-6 levels in responders. IL-21 might be involved in the regulation of autoantibody production in RA.


The pythiosis treatment depends on the animal's immune system and becomes complex, because the agent has its own characteristics, making the action of medicines difficult. Several protocols have been implemented, among the main therapeutic methods used, are surgical, chemical (antifungal), immunotherapy and all of them. This study aimed to perform a literature review, exposing important aspects related to the pythiosis treatment in horses. Amphotericin B specifically communicates with steroids in the fungal cell wall, such as ergosterol, causing porosity in lipid membranes. Potassium iodide can be used efficiently in the treatment of equine pythiosis, as it presents regression of the lesion and favorable evolution of the clinical cases. The use of the combination of different forms of treatment can become a viable alternative. Given the above, surgical removal performed alone does not present satisfactory results, and relapses were observed in 30% of cases and should be associated with other forms of treatment. Treatment with immunotherapy is effective when performed within 60 days of pythiosis evolution.


Best choice problems can be considered one of the most interesting problems of sequential decision analysis. Problems of this type can arise in a wide variety of fields, including psychological, economical, and ecological applications. In this study, we consider a generalization of the best choice problem when it is possible to make more than one choice. We use the Cross-Entropy method to determine the optimal stopping rules and the value of a game. We include results of numerical experiments illustrating the effectiveness of the approach. We obtain estimates of the thresholds in the optimal stopping rules and compare the accuracy of these estimates with those obtained via asymptotic approximation.


Phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase (PHGPx) is known to be an antioxidant enzyme that may be implicated in spermatogenesis, but its functional significance in the development of testes remains poorly understood. To demonstrate the roles of PHGPx in spermatogenesis during postnatal development, expression profiles of PHGPx mRNA and protein in testes and epididymides obtained from mice 1-9 and 27 weeks after birth were spatiotemporally analyzed. In testes, PHGPx mRNA first appeared in 2-week-old mice, while its protein was first detected in late spermatocytes and round spermatids from 3-week-old mice and levels were greatly increased in elongated spermatids and immature spermatozoa of 5-week-old mice. These increased levels were maintained until 27 weeks as well as weak expression in Leydig cells. In the epididymides, PHGPx mRNA was weakly detected in all ages examined, while PHGPx protein first appeared at 4 weeks, greatly increased after 6 weeks, and was observed strongly in luminal sperm and weakly in surrounding tubular epithelium until 27 weeks. These findings indicate that PHGPx is essential for postnatal spermatogenic activity in mice.


INTRODUCTION
Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are rapidly increasing in popularity but little information is available on their potential toxic or carcinogenic effects.

METHODS
Twenty-eight e-cigarette smokers who had not smoked tobacco cigarettes for at least 2 months provided urine samples which were analyzed by validated methods for a suite of toxicant and carcinogen metabolites including 1-hydroxypyrene (1-HOP), 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol and its glucuronides (total NNAL), 3-hydroxypropylmercapturic acid (3-HPMA), 2-hydroxypropylmercapturic acid (2-HPMA), 3-hydroxy-1-methylpropylmercapturic acid (HMPMA), S-phenylmercapturic acid (SPMA), nicotine, and cotinine. Levels of these compounds were compared to those found in cigarette smokers from three previous studies.

RESULTS
Levels of 1-HOP, total NNAL, 3-HPMA, 2-HPMA, HMPMA, and SPMA were significantly lower in the urine of e-cigarette users compared to cigarette smokers. Levels of nicotine and cotinine were significantly lower in e-cigarette users compared to cigarette smokers in one study but not in another.

CONCLUSIONS
With respect to the compounds analyzed here, e-cigarettes have a more favorable toxicity profile than tobacco cigarettes.


We analyze the dynamics of the Japanese board network from 2004 until 2013. We find that the network exhibits some clustering with visible firm conglomerates. Ties between firms are rather persistent, despite noticeable churning among directors. Ownership relations explain only a small fraction of board links. Besides densely connected conglomerates, some tendency of within-sector linkages and linkages to financial institutions can be confirmed. We further investigate the increase in the number of outside directors and find that sectoral differences as well as shareholder characteristics explain to large extend the variation in board composition. The connectivity of firms in the ownership and board network is sometimes related to firm profitability. Firms that are linked to peers with above average profitability are likely also more profitable than firms in other ownership relationships.


YouTube videos offer a potentially useful vehicle for the communication of science, health, and medical information about COVID-19 to children. Findings from this research showed that primary characters appearing in children's educational YouTube videos about COVID-19 were most often adults, with about an equal number of men and women and few characters from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Primary characters frequently demonstrated and modeled protective health measures. Adult expert characters (medical professionals and scientists) appeared to some extent in these videos. Directive discourse frames appeared most frequently, followed by the informative and persuasive discourse frames when communicating scientific and health information. Changes in the use of informative, directive, and persuasive frames before and after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced guidelines on how to communicate about COVID-19 with children are explored.


Highly reliable and flexible video monitoring networks are especially necessary for substation monitoring in traction power system. In this paper, wide area video communication networks based on E1 fiber channel are designed. Harmonious transmission of video and alarm data is realized by proposing two approaches, namely polling by control center and video transfer by substations. A video transmission architecture based on RTP/UDP/IP is advanced. With QoS feedback of RTCP, not only is influence of electric interference in railway private line monitoring greatly reduced, but also dynamically changing bandwidth in Internet monitoring can be made full use of by adjusting the output bitrate of video encoder. Finally, bandwidth control algorithms of video source are discussed. It is proved by experiment that approaches proposed in this paper are adaptive to various video monitoring environments such as electrified railways and Internet, etc.


State-of-the-art convolutional neural networks (CNNs) yield record-breaking predictive performance, yet at the cost of high-energy-consumption inference, that prohibits their widely deployments in resource-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) applications. We propose a dual dynamic inference (DDI) framework that highlights the following aspects: 1) we integrate both input-dependent and resource-dependent dynamic inference mechanisms under a unified framework in order to fit the varying IoT resource requirements in practice. DDI is able to both constantly suppress unnecessary costs for easy samples, and to halt inference for all samples to meet hard resource constraints enforced; 2) we propose a flexible multi-grained learning to skip (MGL2S) approach for input-dependent inference which allows simultaneous layer-wise and channel-wise skipping; 3) we extend DDI to complex CNN backbones such as DenseNet and show that DDI can be applied towards optimizing any specific resource goals including inference latency and energy cost. Extensive experiments demonstrate the superior inference accuracy-resource trade-off achieved by DDI, as well as the flexibility to control such a trade-off as compared to existing peer methods. Specifically, DDI can achieve up to 4 times computational savings with the same or even higher accuracy as compared to existing competitive baselines.


In this work, we demonstrate how it is possible to sharply image multiple object points. The Simultaneous Multiple Surface (SMS) design method has usually been presented as a method to couple N wave-front pairs with N surfaces, but recent findings show that when using N surfaces, we can obtain M image points when N<M under certain conditions. We present the evolution of SMS method, from its basics, to imaging two object points through one surface, the transition from two to three objet points obtained by increasing the parallelism, and getting to the designs of six surfaces imaging up to eight object points. These designs are limited with the condition that the surfaces cannot be placed at the aperture stop. In the process of maximizing the object points to sharp image, we try to exhaust the degrees of freedom of aspherics and free-forms. We conjecture that maximal SMS designs are very close to a good solution, hence using them as a starting point for the optimization will lead us faster to a final optical system. We suggest here different optimization strategies which combined with the SMS method are proven to give the best solution. Through the example of imaging with the high aspect ratio, we compare the results obtained optimizing the rotational lens and using a combination of SMS method and optimization, showing that the second approach is giving significantly smaller value of overall RMS spot diameter.


This paper introduces an information theoretic approach to verification of causal models in modular Bayesian fusion systems. We assume distributed fusion systems which are gradually extended by adding new modules, each having a limited domain knowledge captured in local Bayesian networks. However, since different modules originate from different, independent design processes important dependencies between the variables in different modules might not correctly be captured in the distributed fusion system. This could have a significant impact on the fusion quality. The introduced method supports discovery of significant dependencies which are ignored in the distributed fusion system.


In situ measurements of water equivalent of snow cover (SWE) – the vertical depth of water that would be obtained if all the snow cover melted completely – are used in many applications including water management, flood forecasting, climate monitoring, and evaluation of hydrological and land surface models. The Canadian historical SWE dataset (CanSWE) combines manual and automated pan-Canadian SWE observations collected by national, provincial and territorial agencies as well as hydropower companies. Snow depth (SD) and bulk snow density (defined as the ratio of SWE to SD) are also included when available. This new dataset supersedes the previous Canadian Historical Snow Survey (CHSSD) dataset published by Brown et al. (2019), and this paper describes the efforts made to correct metadata, remove duplicate observations and quality control records. The CanSWE dataset was compiled from 15 different sources and includes SWE information for all provinces and territories that measure SWE. Data were updated to July 2020, and new historical data from the Government of Northwest Territories, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan Water Security Agency, and Hydro-Québec were included. CanSWE includes over 1 million SWE measurements from 2607 different locations across Canada over the period 1928–2020. It is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4734371 (Vionnet et al., 2021).


The role of the dopaminergic and serotonergic system was studied during the embryonic development of the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis, with special attention to the effect of dopamine and serotonin as well as their agonists and antagonists on the rotation of the veliger larvae, and to the effect of precursors and inhibitors of the synthetizing enzymes on the duration of the embryonic life. Serotonin, D-lysergic acid diethylamide and N,N-dimethyltryptamine increased at a concentration of 1 µM the rotation by 50%, 90% and 87% respectively, and among them D-Lysergic acid diethylamide was found to be the most potent agonist. Other serotonergic agonists and antagonists enhanced the frequency of the rotation (from 165% to 355%) at higher threshold concentrations in the following rank order: methysergid > tryptamine > 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine > 5-carboxyamidotryptamine > bromo-lysergic acid diethylamide > 7-methyltryptamine. Application of 1-(2-methoxyphenyl) piperazine decreased the rotation by 76%. The reuptake inhibitor desipramine completely blocked the rotation and killed the embryos. Dopaminergic agonists accelerated the rotation by 62% to 233%, and their effect was ranged as follows: dopamine > apomorphine > m-tyramine ∼ p-tyramine. Chlorpromazine at 100 µM concentration killed the embryos. At a concentration of 100 µg/ml, tyrosine, the precursor of DA, slowed down the embryonic development by increasing the duration of the embryonic life from 8 to 10 days. Decarboxylase inhibitors, α-methyl-3,4-dihydroxyphenyl-alanine (25 µg/ml) and m-hydroxybenzylhydrazin (5 µg/ml), killed 50% of the embryos, meanwhile the rest hatched ten days later, compared to the control animals. The development was partially blocked by the serotonin precusor L-tryptophane (50 µg/ml). Trytophan hydroxylase blocker, p-chlorphenylalanine (50 µg/ml) resulted in a distortion of the body pattern of the embryos, and prevented the hatching of most (95%) of the animals.


We analyze a model of directed search in which unemployed job seekers observe all posted wages. We allow for the possibility of multiple applications by workers and ex post competition among vacancies. For any number of applications, there is a unique symmetric equilibrium in which vacancies post a common wage. When workers apply to only one vacancy, a single wage is paid and the resulting equilibrium is efficient. When workers make multiple applications, there is dispersion in wages paid, and equilibrium may be inefficient. We show that our results also hold in a steady-state version of the model.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)


Now a day's power system facing a power quality problem due to increase in power demand and increase in industrial plants. Good power quality means the power supply which can always available within voltage and frequency tolerance and also these are harmonic free and pure sinusoidal shape. This paper describes the power flow control in transmission line with Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) family, called Distributed Power Flow Controller (DPFC). The DPFC is derived from the Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC). The DPFC can be considered as UPFC with an eliminated common DC link, to enable the independent operation of the shunt and the series converters which enhances the effective placement of the series and shunt converters. The active power exchange between the two converters, which is through the common dc link in the UPFC, is now through the transmission lines at the third-harmonic frequency in the DPFC. DPFC is used to mitigate the voltage sag and swell as a power quality issue. The DPFC have the same control capability as the UPFC, which comprises the adjustment of the line impedance, the transmission angle, and the bus voltage. In DPFC three-phase series converter is divided to several single-phase series distributed converters through the


Many researchers have noted the growing wage disparity in information societies. The reasons for this wage inequality, however, are still in dispute. This article explores the sources of wage inequality and the reasons for its rise during Taiwan's transition to an information society. Applying the Theil index for measuring economic inequality, this analysis is able to shed light on the sources of inequality.


In the contemporary global market, organizations are striving to survive and compete not only by satisfying customer's needs but also by fulfilling it with the least costs. Quality management experts determined that quality costs account for a substantial part of total production costs. Therefore, finding a way to improve the Quality Level (QL) while minimizing the Cost of Quality (COQ) is a crucial task. In the manufacturing industry, there are a variety of costs that are directly associated with the production; these costs can be considered as visible costs. However, another type of costs may indirectly arise during and after manufacturing processes or even after the product reaches the customer. These types of costs are considered as invisible (hidden) costs and in most cases are difficult to track. Measuring the effect of hidden costs such as the costs of unsatisfying a customer is not straightforward. Even though the hidden costs may have serious consequences for any organization if they are not considered in early stages, they are rarely incorporated in the COQ calculations.
Furthermore, the COQ models found in the literature rarely go beyond the costs incurred within an individual firm and seldom attempt to estimate cost elements related to the customers or suppliers. This, however, does not reflect the reality, since not all the quality costs are generated internally. Suppliers, subcontractors, agents, dealers and customers each contribute (sometimes significantly) to an organization's indirect quality costs. It is therefore proposed to combine the internal measures of COQ with costs related to both upstream and downstream supply chain (SC) partners.
In this thesis, pursuing the aforementioned motivations, we focus on designing SCs in framework of various COQs and QLs. The previous literature lacks a work that integrates the opportunity cost (OC), COQ and QL into SC and Supply Chain Network Design (SCND). The main objectives of this thesis are to consider OC in the COQ analysis, to incorporate it into the Prevention, Appraisal, and Failure (PAF) model, and to analyze it together with various QLs in a manufacturer SC. The purpose is to find an optimum QL that matches the minimum spending on the COQ and. This work proposes a reliable COQ model, which can be used to measure COQ in the whole SC.
We carried out a case study in a manufacturing SC to collect the PAF data and the related data to OC i.e., customer satisfaction. The involved organization is an automobile manufacturing SC. A system dynamics model is used to simulate the COQ, while including OC and analyzing its effects at different QLs.
In addition, PAF, OC, and QL are mathematically modeled in an uncapacitated SC. Different proposed scenarios were developed to allocate the PAF, OC, and QL in the SC. The model determines the best scenario of allocating the COQ at each facility while minimizing the COQ and OC, and thereby optimizing the QL. Based on the COQ, the mathematical model also reveals the difference between the centralized and decentralized SC. Moreover, we address the effects of spending limitations of PA costs on F, OC, and QL at each facility and in the SC as a whole.
Afterwards, the thesis develops a mathematical model which is involved in designing of a capacitated SCND based on PAF, OC, and QL. The developed model is intended to highlight the importance of OC by show the difference between OC-included and OC-excluded SCND model. The SCND model is also used to determine the best improvement in the QL, i.e. the optimal value of investing in the COQ at each echelon.
Finally, a hybrid decision support system (DSS) model which combines the mathematical model and the simulation model for COQ, OC, and QL is developed. The model implements the optimum results of the mathematical model in the simulation model. This aim is to increase spending on PA costs beyond the optimal results of the mathematical model. The model is intended to decrease the OC (increase the number of new customeers). The results show how the combined methodologies can provide better decision support for upper management.
This research shows that COQ can be used as a meaningful measure of improvement not only in an organization but in the whole SC. The methods developed in this thesis will provide a powerful tool to management for assessing quality economics, facilitating quality programs and optimizing benefits of quality across SC.


To study the effect of phosphorus solublizing bacteria as biological growth regulators of rapeseed Brassica napus L.) field experiments were conducted from September 2006 to October 2007 at the experimental farm of Arak Islamic Azad University in Iran. The study comprised four levels of phosphorus (P) solublizing bacteria and three rates of ammonium phosphate (0, 125 and 250 kg ha-1). The results showed no significant effects of the three ammonium phosphate rates on plant height, biomass yield and oil content in grains. However, number of pods per plant, grain yield and the P concentration in the shoot and, seeds were significantly increased with ammonium phosphate treatment. Compared to the untreated control phosphorus solubilizing bacteria (PSB) significantly increased average plant height from 77.7 to 97.3 cm, total dry matter from 7.5 to 11.4 t ha-1, number of pods per plant from 62.2 to 115.8, oil content in grains from 48.4% to 49.5, grain yield from 3.0 to 9.9 t ha-1 and P concentration from 0.21% to 0.33% in shoots, from 0.51% to 0.69% in reproductive plant parts (what do you mean here if not seeds?) and from 0.53% to 0.68% in mature grains. The combination of mineral P application at 125 kg P ha-1 and PSB application increased P concentration in the shoot dry matter from 0.21 % to 0.78 %.


Studies in the Physiology of germination in the genus Avena. The germination requirements of grains of Avena sativa, Avena fatua AveMia. ludoviciana have been investigated, and seed dormancy shown to develop with the attainment of ripeness in these species. The degree of dormancy was found to be transitory in A. sativa, and more intense and more persistent in the other two species. Promotion of the subsequent germination was observed when grains of A. sativa were allowed to imbibe for several hours, subjected to a dehydration treatment and a period of dry storage before being returned to germination conditions. This was shown to be largely due to the retention of some of the physical and physiological changes which normally occur within' the early stages of germination. Embryo damage resulted when the same treatment was given to grains with growing embryos, the severity of the damage being related to the degree of morphological development of the embryo at the time of treatment. It was concluded that -there is no initial period of imbibition which can be completely reversed by this treatment, and that there is no distinct lag between the commencement of imbibition and of the changes leading to the onset of growth. The development of amylolytic enzymes in germinating grains of A.sativa has also been studied. Only b-Amylase was present in the dry grain but concurrently with, or shortly after the commencement of embryo growth a-Amylase began to be developed. General similarities were observed in the pattern of Amylase, development in germinating grains of all three species investigated, but dormant brains of A. fatua and A. ludoviciana showed no .increased amylase development. The development of a-Amylase would appear to take place in the endosperm, but the greying embryo appears to play an -essential role in its development. Analyses of grains of A. sativa after 24 hours in germination conditions showed that a Considerable utilisation of seed fats, and of some soluble carbohydrates has Occurred. Starch hydrolysis was not evident until 24.48 hours in germination conditions. Proteolytic activity of dry grains of A. sativa was found to be mainly located in the embryo tissues, and to undergo a several-told increase during the pre-germination period of imbibition. This development took place mainly in the embryo tissues, with diffusion to the endosperm occurring later. Germinating grains of A. fatua and A. ludoviciana showed a similar pattern of increasing proteolytic activity, but dormant grains showed no capacity for increased activity. Since this increased activity is a pre-germination change, and is potentially capable of restricting embryo growth it must be considered as a possible mechanism by which seed dormancy is enforced. The presence of germination inhibiting materials in whole grains, and husks of A.sativa has been confirmed, and their activity shown against seed of A. sativa, Hordeum vulgare, Triticum aestivum, Linum usitatissimum, Brssica oleracea and Trifolium pratense. Previous investigators claimed that the action of these materials was due to their inhibition of the amylase enzymes of the grains, particularly a-Amylase. Tests with amylase preparations from germinated grains of A. sativa, and Barley, and fungal and bacterial a-Amylases failed to confirm this finding. The possibility of retarding germination by inhibiting amylases would appear to be doubtful in the light of our findings on amylase development and starch utilisation. Considerable inhibition of the activity of proteolytic enzymes from grains of A. sativa and Barley was however observed in the extract of A. sativa husks. The same water extracts of whole grains of A, sativa and Ate, fatua were found to be capable of inhibiting the germination of A. eativa grains and promoting the germination of A. fatua grains. The presence, and the amounts of these germination inhibiting and promoting materials in A. fatua could net be correlated with the degree of dormancy in the grains used for extraction.


This paper examines and proposes a set of metadata elements for describing digital news articles for the benefit of distributed and heterogeneous news resource discovery. Existing digital news description standards such as NITF and NewsML are analysed and compared with Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES), which results in that the use of Dublin Core is encouraged for interoperability of the resources. The suggested metadata elements are carefully selected and defined considering the characteristics of news articles. Some elements are detailed with refinement qualifiers and recommended encoding scheme. This set of metadata has been developed as a part of the tasks in the IST (Information Society Technologies)-funded European project OmniPaper (Smart Access to European Newspapers, IST-2001-32174).


The concept of Self-Optimizing Machining Systems (SOMS) has been proposed against the background of Industry 4.0 and the Digital Twin concept, based on cyber-physical systems. In order to improve manufacturing productivity, quality, and efficiency, each component technology related to the machining process, such as CAD/CAM, process modeling/simulation, process monitoring/control, and workpiece assessment, as well as the machine tools themselves, has been developed independently to date. However, series of processes, including the interactions among these component technologies, have finally determined the machining performance and the quality of the products. SOMS deals with the information links among these components comprehensively and plays the important role of combining these links and functionalities to optimize the overall machining system. Nevertheless, an intensive implementation and combination of these technologies has yet to become state-of-the-art in industry, while further research and development for SOMS is required for Industry 4.0 and Digital Twin.
 This special issue focuses on the research trends of SOMS, especially the interaction links among machine tools, process monitoring, and work assessment. From researchers who are active on the front lines of manufacturing engineering, the latest achievements related to the development of SOMS are presented in 6 papers. On one hand, the development of sensor-integrated components is indispensable for SOMS to monitor the status of a process and feed it back to a related component in order to control the machining process and its environment. On the other hand, it can be said that visual simulation, virtual metrology, and other epoch-making, on-machine technologies for evaluating machined surfaces, as well as process optimization based on machined surface information, are strongly required.
 We hope this special issue will contribute to future research and development for researchers and engineers in the field of manufacturing and machining systems.


Significant progress has been made in the development of genome-scale models of metabolism in the past 15 years. The majority of the efforts have focused on the analysis of the right null space. While the steady state solution space is very important since homeostatic mechanisms are continuously trying to push the system back to a steady state, there are three other subspaces which also have significance. This dissertation approaches metabolic networks with the goal of investigating all four fundamental subspaces of linear systems, particularly the row and column spaces, which determine the dynamic capabilities of networks. First, the key matrices are defined and their general properties and characteristics are identified. The subspaces are analyzed for a simple metabolic network. Next the right null space is explored in a targeted manner using real networks, the cardiomyocyte mitochondria and a genome-scale model of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, focusing on perfectly correlated reaction sets and the biologically interesting implications they may hold. This is followed by the development of analytical methods to define the time scale hierarchy in the column space of the human red cell, human folate metabolism, and yeast glycolysis. These studies are further pursued by investigating various decompositions of the stoichiometric and gradient matrices that are determined by the underlying physico-chemical characteristics. These investigations lead to the identification of key properties of metabolic networks, such as the duality between fluxes and concentrations in dynamic networks. Having established how to decompose these networks, a middle-out integration approach is described for building or reconstructing kinetic networks using '-omic' data streams that are increasingly available. This approach is applied to construct a dynamic model of human red cell metabolism with and without mechanistic integration of allosteric regulatory functions of enzymes, dynamic models of E. coli, as well as a general hepatocyte mitochondria model which can be used for application of these methods, when the appropriate data becomes available. Simulations with the regulated erythrocyte model highlight the importance of active versus inactive states of enzymes and how the binding state of the enzyme exerts control of the flux through competing pathways. The subsequent chapter investigates perturbational analyses and how they can inform functional states and identify pathophysiological conditions. This dissertation culminates in a description of a conceptually new approach to modeling, 'delta' networks, that relaxes data requirements and is focused on identifying the functional differences between different data sets in an effort to understand as much of the four subspaces as possible, not just the right null space. The studies carried out in this dissertation also further support the use of models as data interrogation tools; for data integration, analysis, as well as for the evaluation of data consistency. The developments and advancements made herein take steps towards achieving genome-scale dynamic regulated networks of metabolism, which can in principle be applied to any biological network.


Vaughan Lewis is Professor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies and former Prime Minister of St Lucia. In a distinguished career as a Caribbean intellectual and policymaker, he served as the first Director General of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (1982-1995), and in various positions within government in St Lucia. As an academic, he published many monographs and articles on a wide range of issues related to Caribbean politics and international relations, small states, regionalism and regional integration, and he made a number of key contributions to the development of IR more broadly.


Staphylococcus aureus is a metabolically versatile human pathogen, causing disease in many areas of the body. Its versatility can be attributed to the fact that it utilizes a variety of tools to adapt to many different environments, including toxins to scavenge from the host and multiple transporters to compete for its preferred carbon sources. S. aureus can also survive in harsh conditions through biofilm development, which are notoriously recalcitrant to antibiotics and immune defenses. Biofilms exhibit marked heterogeneity, with division of labor for production of matrix components and differential gene expression among various niches within the biofilm. In this study, we investigated the development of metabolic heterogeneity as structures form during biofilm maturation. Additionally, we investigated how metabolic regulators control proper development of mature structures and their impact on biofilm matrix composition. We observed the initiation of metabolic heterogeneity before nutrient gradients could form within structures, consistent with recent findings that heterogeneity is a trait that begins from the first stages of biofilm development, when cells encounter a surface. Furthermore, we observed inactivation of CodY and CcpA have a substantial impact on central carbon and nitrogen metabolism as well as toxin production and biofilm development.


In the language acquisition literature children are reported to make typical errors in assigning stress to words. These errors are taken to be unequivocal evidence that children learn rules for stress assignment as opposed to learning on a word-by-word basis. In this study an algorithm is used in a stress assignment task that incorporates exemplarbased learning as opposed to rule-based learning, viz. Instance-Based Learning (IBL). IBL belongs to a class of Lazy Learning algorithms which do not derive explicit abstractions such as rules, but instead basically memorize the learning material and generalize by analogical reasoning on the basis of examples stored in memory. Experimental results show that IBL makes the same kinds of stress related errors in production that children make: (i) the amount of production errors is related to metrical markedness, and (ii) stress shifts and errors with respect to the segmental and syllabic structure of words typically take the form of a regularization of stress patterns. We also highlight a type of error that is not extensively discussed in the language acquisition literature though it occurs quite frequently, viz. irregularizations. In an exemplar-based model irregularizations can be elegantly explained by IBL's basic processing mechanisms. Stress assignment: Rules or Memory? 1


ABSTRACT The Maillard Reaction (MR) is a non-enzymatic chemical reaction which results in the linkage between the amino group of amino acids and the carbonyl group of reduced sugars. MR products (MRPs) are common components of processed foods, mainly as a result of heating, especially in the Western diet. MRPs are classified as into three stages: initial, intermediate, and final stages, indicative of increased complexity and size, incurring different flavor, aroma, and texture. MRPs presence is known to reduce the nutritional quality of foods, particularly by reducing protein digestibility. Early reports have linked MRPs, especially advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) present in high concentration in the typical Western diet, to health conditions and diseases. However conflicting data has since been reported, and only a few (acrylamide, heterocyclic amines and 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural) MRPs have documented potential toxic or carcinogenic effects. High molecular weight MRPs are not available for direct absorption in the higher gastrointestinal tract, and are thus mostly metabolized by resident colonic microbes. MRPs have been the subject of sparse research interest in comparison with other non-digestible dietary elements. In this review, we outline the state of knowledge on MRPs in nutrition and health, and highlight the need to develop the limited knowledge on their impact on the gut microbiota and which metabolites derive from MRPs fermentation.


Even by international standards, Ireland?s fiscal position was particularly affected by the recent financial crisis. As budgetary surpluses quickly gave way to significant deficits post 2007, the deterioration in the Irish public finances culminated in an Excessive Deficit Procedure being launched in 2009 and entry into a formal EU/IMF assistance programme in late 2010. Much of this deterioration was caused by the sudden and sharp decline in the Irish housing market as property-related taxes dried up. In this paper we quantify the extent of housing related tax windfall gains and losses. We find that at various times over the past three decades, there have been instances where dis-equilibrium in the Irish housing market has had significant implications for the associated taxation receipts. Examining taxation aggregates in this manner can be seen as an important complement to recent policy responses aimed at improving fiscal governance.


The aetiology of childhood leukaemia remains largely unknown. Several hypotheses involve environmental exposures that could implicate spatial clustering of cases. The evidence from previous clustering studies is inconclusive. Most of them used areal data and thus had limited spatial resolution. We investigated whether childhood leukaemia tends to cluster in space using exact geocodes of place of residence both at the time of birth or diagnosis. We included 1,871 leukaemia cases diagnosed between 1985 and 2015 at age 0–15 years from the Swiss Childhood Cancer Registry. For each case, we randomly sampled 10 age and sex matched controls from national censuses closest in time. We used the difference of k‐functions, Cuzick‐Edwards' test and Tango's index for point data to assess spatial clustering and Kulldorff's circular scan to detect clusters. We separately investigated acute lymphoid leukaemia (ALL), acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), different age groups at diagnosis (0–4, 5–15 years) and adjusted for multiple testing. After adjusting for multiple testing, we found no evidence of spatial clustering of childhood leukaemia neither around time of birth (p = 0.52) nor diagnosis (p = 0.51). Individual tests indicated spatial clustering for leukaemia diagnosed at age 5–15 years, p k‐functions = 0.05 and p Cuzick‐Edwards' = 0.04 and a cluster of ALL cases diagnosed at age 0–4 years in a small rural area (p = 0.05). This study provides little evidence of spatial clustering of childhood leukaemia in Switzerland and highlights the importance of accounting for multiple testing in clustering studies.


To achieve simultaneously higher transparency and heat-shielding performance of CsxWO3 for energy-saving glass applications, we developed small size CsxWO3 nanorods with lengths of 10–60 nm by controllable solvothermal reaction and a subsequent heat-treatment with citric acid thermolysis under a N2 atmosphere. It has been proved that crystal growth could be controlled by using solid state gel-like tungstic acid as the W source and controlling the water content in the precursor solution. In the meantime, the deposited carbon film on the particle surface due to thermolysis of citric acid during N2 heat-treatment could also inhibit the crystal growth. It has been confirmed that the as-prepared CsxWO3 films on a glass substrate from dispersion of CsxWO3 particles after N2 heat-treatment with citric acid thermolysis exhibited improved transparency and near-infrared (NIR) shielding ability. Particularly, the CsxWO3 particles synthesized using pure ethanol as the solvent exhibited the best visible light transparency and NIR shielding performance. The mechanism of controlling the small size and improving the visible light transparency and NIR shielding ability of CsxWO3 particles was discussed, which is of significance for realizing broad applications in the field of energy-saving glasses, and the synthetic strategy is also suitable for synthesizing other small size functional nanoparticles.


Incorporating healthcare data from different sources is crucial for a better understanding of patient (sub)populations. However, data centralization raises concerns about data privacy and governance. In this work, we present an improved infrastructure that allows privacy-preserving analysis of patient data: vantage6 v3. For this new version, we describe its architecture and upgraded functionality, which allows algorithms running at each party to communicate with one another through a virtual private network (while still being isolated from the public internet to reduce the risk of data leakage). This allows the execution of different types of algorithms (e.g., multi-party computation) that were practically infeasible before, as showcased by the included examples. The (continuous) development of this type of infrastructure is fundamental to meet the current and future demands of healthcare research with a strong emphasis on preserving the privacy of sensitive patient data.


We consider the van der Waals' free energy functional, with a scaling small parameter epsilon, in the plane domain given by the first quadrant, and inhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. The boundary data are chosen in such a way that the interface between the pure phases tends to be horizontal and is pinned at some point on the y-axis which approaches zero as epsilon converges to zero. We show that there exists a critical scaling for the pinning point, such that, as the small parameter epsilon tends to zero, the competing effects of repulsion from the boundary and penalization of gradients play a role in determining the optimal shape of the (properly rescaled) interface. This result is achieved by means of an asymptotic development of the free energy functional. As a consequence, such analysis is not restricted to minimizers but also encodes the asymptotic probability of fluctuations.


With the constant growth of the World Wide Web and the number of documents in different languages accordingly, the need for reliable language detection tools has increased as well. Platforms such as Twitter with predominantly short texts are becoming important information resources, which additionally imposes the need for short texts language detection algorithms. In this paper, we show how incorporating personalized user-specific information into the language detection algorithm leads to an important improvement of detection results. To choose the best algorithm for language detection for short text messages, we investigate several machine learning approaches. These approaches include the use of the well-known classifiers such as SVM and logistic regression, a dictionary based approach, and a probabilistic model based on modified Kneser-Ney smoothing. Furthermore, the extension of the probabilistic model to include additional user-specific information such as evidence accumulation per user and user interface language is explored, with the goal of improving the classification performance. The proposed approaches are evaluated on randomly collected Twitter data containing Latin as well as non-Latin alphabet languages and the quality of the obtained results is compared, followed by the selection of the best performing algorithm. This algorithm is then evaluated against two already existing general language detection tools: Chromium Compact Language Detector 2 (CLD2) and langid, where our method significantly outperforms the results achieved by both of the mentioned methods. Additionally, a preview of benefits and possible applications of having a reliable language detection algorithm is given.


There is an assumption that the younger cohort of teachers who are considered to be digital natives will be able to integrate technology into their teaching spaces with ease. This study aims to determine if there is a difference between generational cohorts with respect to ICT (Information Communication Technology) integration in classrooms among South African teachers. There is a paucity of research on ICT integration in education with respect to generational cohorts. This study involved a secondary analysis of two primary data sets, which contained qualitative and quantitative data. The quantitative data revealed that there are few statistical differences between the generations with respect to their ICT usage in the classroom. However, the qualitative data revealed that younger cohorts of teachers appear to be highly concerned about classroom management, while a recurring theme amongst all cohorts was the lack of access and time.


PURPOSE
The impact of an innovative medication reconciliation and discharge education program on 30-day readmissions and emergency department (ED) visits was evaluated.

METHODS
An observational pre-post analysis was conducted at an academic medical center to compare rates of hospital readmissions and return to ED visits during three-month periods before and after implementation of a restructured pharmacy practice model including (1) medication reconciliation at transitions of care for every patient and discharge education for a high-risk subgroup, (2) new or expanded services in the preanesthesia testing clinic and ED, (3) a medication reconciliation technician team, and (4) pharmacist-to-patient ratios of 1:30 on acute care floors and 1:18 on critical care units. The primary outcome was the composite of rates of readmissions and return to ED visits within 30 days of discharge.

RESULTS
A total of 3,316 patients were included in the study. Pharmacy teams completed medication reconciliation in 95.8% of cases at admission and 69.7% of cases at discharge. Discharge education was provided to 73.5% of high-risk patients (defined as those receiving anticoagulation therapy or treatment for acute myocardial infarction, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure, or pneumonia). No significant difference was observed between the preimplementation and postimplementation groups with regard to the primary outcome. In the high-risk subgroup, there was a significant reduction in the 30-day rate of hospital readmissions, which declined from 17.8% to 12.3% (p=0.042); cost projections indicated that this reduction in readmissions could yield annual direct cost savings of more than $780,000.

CONCLUSION
Implementation of a team-based pharmacy practice model resulted in a significant decrease in the rate of 30-day readmissions for high-risk patients.


ABSTRACT It is clear that interest in the life and writings of Cardinal John Henry Newman transcends the various Christian denominations and indeed extends beyond that. The Symposium held at St Margaret's Westminster on 18 October 2019 to celebrate Newman's Canonisation was testimony to this fact. This in itself is significant surprising given Newman's well known ability to become a focus of controversy and to be a sometimes polarising figure during his own lifetime – a trait that has been bequeathed to posterity as scholars and commentators have contended over his disputed legacy, even though the contestation in recent times has tended not to be drawn along denominational lines. Newman spent half his life as an Anglican and so it is fitting that his relationship to the Church of England should loom large in the literature and historiography in Newman studies and to have been a prominent element in the recent Symposium.


Cloud computing mechanisms are steadily gaining significance in the field of IT infrastructure hosting and maintenance. To date, we have reached a point where a paradigm shift can be observed. An increasing number of IT players are rethinking the way the technical foundation of their offerings is operated from in-house datacenter hosting towards the outsourcing of infrastructure or services to specialized external cloud computing companies. With the emergence of more and more commercial cloud providers and offerings, combining resources from two or more providers - in order to benefit from factors like price differences, locality of resources, etc. - becomes increasingly feasible for consumers of cloud services. Therefore, it is desirable for such users to have an overarching monitoring system that aggregates a multitude of measurements from resources of different administrative domains in a unified manner. This paper introduces a comprehensive monitoring solution for federated clouds that provides data for both infrastructure providers and cloud users. This system does not only support monitoring resources from heterogeneous domains on both the network and infrastructure level, but moreover provides monitoring support that is able to operate across large numbers of end-to-end resources at the service as well as the application level. In this paper the design of this system as well as its implementation is discussed, and a validation of the system within the context of the European funded project BonFIRE is presented. The utility of the system is shown through the conduct of experimentation.


We show that a special case of the Feferman-Vaught composition theorem gives
rise to a natural notion of automata for finite words over an infinite
alphabet, with good closure and decidability properties, as well as several
logical characterizations. We also consider a slight extension of the
Feferman-Vaught formalism which allows to express more relations between
component values (such as equality), and prove related decidability results.
 From this result we get new classes of decidable logics for words over an
infinite alphabet.


Site initialization is the problem of integrating a new site into a running distributed database system (DDBS). Site recovery is the problem of integrating an old site into a DDBS when the site recovers from failure. Site backup is the problem of creating a static backup copy of a database for archival or query purposes. We present an algorithm that solves the site initialization problem. By modifying the algorithm slightly, we get solutions to the other two problems as well. Our algorithm exploits the fact that a correct DDBS must run a serializable concurrency control algorithm. Our algorithm relies on the concurrency control algorithm to handle all intersite synchronization.


During routine dissection for undergraduate medical students, we observed two separate heads of plantaris muscle on left lower limbs of a 80 years old donated embalmed male cadaver in the Department of Anatomy, K. J. Somaiya Medical College, Sion, Mumbai, India. Both the heads of the plantaris muscle were composed of a thick muscle belly and a long thin tendon. One head of the plantaris muscle originated from the lower part of the lateral supracondylar line of the femur superior to the origin of the lateral head of gastrocnemius while the other head of the plantaris muscle originated from the oblique popliteal ligament. The tendons of both the heads of the plantaris muscle ran downwards inferomedially posterior to the knee joint. Both the tendons united to form common tendon and ran along the medial side of the tendo calcaneus. The common tendon of both the heads of the plantaris muscle got inserted separately into the medial side of the calcaneus bone. The photographs of the variations were taken for proper documentation and for ready reference. The variations of plantaris muscle are very rare and not found in literature. The plantaris muscle is vestigial in human beings and has much clinical importance. The plantaris muscle is absent in 7-10% of the human population. Injury of the plantaris muscle causes the painful calf. It may occur at the myotendinous junction with or without an associated hematoma and partial tear of the soleus or the medial head of the gastrocnemius muscle. Injuries of the plantaris muscle and tendon is called as "tennis leg". The long, thin tendon of the plantaris is humorously called "the freshman's nerve", as it is often mistaken for a nerve by first-year medical students. Knowledge of anatomical variations of the plantaris muscle is important for physiotherapists, plastic surgeons performing tendon transfer operations, clinicians diagnosing muscle tears and radiologists interpreting MRI scans.


This report outlines the results of an archaeological building investigation, which was carried out to RCHME (1996) Level III standard at The Dye House, Hallthwaites, Millom, Cumbria (SD 1820 8539). The Dye House is thought to be one of the earliest woollen manufacturing sites in the area and, as such, contributes much to the understanding of the industrial archaeology of the Lake District.
Information gathered during the desk-based assessment suggested that the original building had been built between 1771 and 1829, although there was little information specifically about the Dye House dating to before the late nineteenth century, by which time it was owned and run by the Moore family.
The building investigation revealed that although the Dye House is in an advanced state of disrepair and much of the fabric has already collapsed, several periods of development could be identified. The complex is constructed from differing materials some of which is local (mainly unworked) stone and river cobbles, which was presumably the cheapest and most easily available material. Parts of the complex are constructed from better quality split stone of typical South Lakeland tradition.
The results of the building investigation suggested that there were six principal phases of activity, the earliest of which comprised only a small building, which was expanded throughout the nineteenth century.
As some areas (mainly the floors) are obscured by collapsed wall debris further investigation, possibly in the form of a watching brief, is recommended prior to any development of the complex taking place.


Ming Dong Gu and Jianping Guo The essay by Fan Meijun and Wang Zhihe has sparked broad reflection by Ming Dong Gu and Jianping Guo in the form of a sustained response to the philosophical issues in the intellectual encounter between East and West. While agreeing with the thesis and major ideas of Fan and Wang, Gu and Guo offer a critique of some issues and continue to reflect on a series of questions relevant to the exchanges between Eastern and Western thought, which include: Is there an intellectual divide between East and West? What are the intellectual barriers to genuine dialogue? Do the intellectual barriers identified by Fan and Wang accurately mirror the real conditions of Eastern and Western thought? If they are true, have they formed a paradigm in East-West studies? If yes, what is the conceptual ground for the paradigm? Which is more responsible for the intellectual barriers, Western-centrism or Eastern-centrism? Besides Western process thought, is there any Eastern thought that can be appropriated to overcome the intellectual barriers? Gu and Guo's reflections are summarized in a general question: under what conditions can East meet West in intellectual thought? Identifying some common ground in Eastern and Western thought, they reveal blind spots in current efforts to cross the East-West divide and examine some successful cases of East-West dialogue. Based on their meditations, they suggest new dimensions to the Second Enlightenment and call for transcultural intellectual empowerment for all cultural traditions.


In this paper we propose a novel approach for the texture analysis-synthesis problem, with the purpose to restore missing zones in greyscale images. Bit-plane decomposition is used, and a dictionary is build with bit-blocks statistics for each plane. Gaps are reconstructed with a conditional stochastic process, to propagate texture global features into the damaged area, using information stored in the dictionary. Our restoration method is simple, easy and fast, with very good results for a large set of textured images. Results are compared with a state-of-the-art restoration algorithm.


The common law of England and the United States and the civil law of continental Europe have a similar doctrinal structure, a structure not found in the English cases or Roman legal texts from which they supposedly descend. In this original and unorthodox study of common law and legal philosophy the author throws light on the historical origins of this confusion and in doing so attempts to find answers to many of the philosophical puzzles which contract lawyers face today. Reassessing the impact of modern philosophy upon contract law, the author concludes that modern philosophy having failed to provide a new basis for a coherent doctrinal system in the law of contract, the only hope for devising such a coherent system lies in rediscovering the neglected philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas.


Abstract The petrology, mineralogy, and geochemistry of lawsonite blueschists from the Tavşanlı zone in northwest Turkey—one of the best-preserved blueschist terranes in the world—have been comprehensively investigated. The blueschist samples contain lawsonite + sodic amphibole + phengite + chlorite + titanite + apatite ± aragonite ± quartz ± relict igneous pyroxene ± Mn-rich garnet and opaque phases. Lawsonite is a significant repository for Sr, Pb, Th, U, and REE, whereas phengite carries the most large-ion lithophile element (LILE), titanite hosts the highest Nb and Ta as well as considerable amounts of high field strength element (HFSE), and apatite strongly controls Sr. Two groups of blueschist have different origins—enriched continent-derived terrigenous origin and mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB)-like submarine basalts—assigned on the basis of whole-rock major and trace element compositions and initial Sr-Nd-Pb isotopic results. Lawsonite in blueschist with enriched origin exhibits strong Th/La fractionation, raising the possibility of the involvement of blueschist facies mélange to explain the origin of Mediterranean potassium-rich magmatism because similarly high Th/La ratios are also observed in the Mediterranean potassium-rich lavas. We propose that subduction-induced tectonic imbrication took place entirely at shallow depths (<80 km), giving rise to a newly formed lithosphere where oceanic and continental crustal materials, sediments, strongly depleted peridotite blocks, and metamorphic rocks are all imbricated together, and in which many of the compositional characteristics of the lawsonite blueschist are sequestered. Subsequent melting of the fertile and enriched components in this new lithosphere would result in the generation of potassium-rich post-collisional mafic magmas with diagnostic geochemical affinities.


The act of choosing the language(s) with which one expresses oneself, or the decision of crossing a boundary of languages, would be deeply related to one's identity. If we see this in the context of literature in Japan, Japanese authors started writing in other languages (e.g. Kyoko Mori, Yoko Tawada) in 1990s. Around the same time, non-Japanese writers such as Levy Hideo and Arthur Binard started publishing works written in Japanese.While this "crossing the boundary of Japanese language" to both directions has been taking place, we could also find some authors that chose not to choose one language, but decided to mix several. It is hybrid literature in which the authors use more than one language within the same text, often without translation, such as in cases of Shishosetsu From Left to Right by Minae Mizumura (1995), or Chorus of Mushrooms (1994) by Hiromi Goto. They both mix English and Japanese languages in the texts, though the former was published in Japan, and the latter in Canada. This type of work is unique since what it is transmitting, which could be a gap between two languages or cultures, or a disturbing sensation of not being able to understand whole of the text, refuses translation, at least into the "second" languages used in these novels. It might also suggest what these authors felt "not translatable" for either linguistic or cultural distance (or both). In the current study, the language and cultural "hybridity" of the above mentioned works of Minamura and Goto will be analysed, partly in relation with the concept of the translatability in translation studies.


Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are the most promising materials which could reach to DOE target on methane adsorption in practical situations. So finding the best combination of metals and linkers that show the highest adsorption capacity is the most important step in MOFs production process. In this article, the methane storage capacity on a series of the metal-organic frameworks known as M-MOF-74 (M=Mg, Mn, Zn, Co, Ni) has been investigated by using molecular simulation method. Grand Canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulation is employed to predict methane adsorption isotherms at ambient temperature and up to 45 bar pressure. Simulation results show Ni-MOF-74 has the highest methane capacity amongst others (Ni>Co>Zn>Mn>Mg). Finally, the obtained results are compared with experimental adsorption isotherms data and another simulation study, borrowed from literature, to determine the validity of the proposed simulation. Use of universal force field instead TraPPE force field to extract the Lenard-Jones parameters for methane is the main difference between present simulation and another existing simulation (Ye et al.). Results demonstrate high fitness between our simulation and experimental data.


We present an algorithm that estimates dense planar-parallax motion from multiple uncalibrated views of a 3D scene. This generalizes the "plane+parallax" recovery methods to more than two frames. The parallax motion of pixels across multiple frames (relative to a planar surface) is related to the 3D scene structure and the camera epipoles. The parallax field, the epipoles, and the 3D scene structure are estimated directly from image brightness variations across multiple frames, without precomputing correspondences.


Codes based on SUDOKU puzzles are discussed, and belief propagation decoding introduced for the erasure channel. Despite the non-linearity of the code constraints, it is argued that density evolution can be used to analyse code performance due to the invariance of the code under alphabet permutation. The belief propagation decoder for erasure channels operates by exchanging messages containing sets of possible values. Accordingly, density evolution tracks the probability mass functions of the set cardinalities. The equations governing the mapping of those probability mass functions are derived and calculated for variable and constraint nodes, and decoding thresholds are computed for long SUDOKU codes with random interleavers.


This article introduces a new Stata command, labcenswdi,1 to automatically manage databases that provide variable descriptions on the second row in a dataset. While renaming all variables and converting them from string to numeric, labcenswdi automatically manages the variable descriptions including removing them from the second row to place them into Stata variable labels and saving them to a text file. The process yields a dataset ready for statistical analysis. I illustrate how this command can be used to efficiently manage datasets obtained from the U.S. Census 2000 and the World Development Indicators databases.


For the last half century, Latin America has been plagued by civil wars, dictatorships, torture, legacies of colonialism and racism, and other evils. The region has also experienced dramatic-if uneven-human rights improvements. The accounts of how Latin America's people have dealt with the persistent threats to their fundamental rights offer lessons for people around the world. Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope is the first textbook to provide a comprehensive introduction to the human rights issues facing an area that constitutes more than half of the Western Hemisphere. Leading human rights researcher and educator Sonia Cardenas brings together regional examples of both terror and hope, emphasizing the dualities inherent in human rights struggles. Organized by three pivotal topics-human rights violations, reform, and accountability-this book offers an authoritative synthesis of research on human rights on the continent. From historical accounts of abuse to successful transnational campaigns and legal battles, Human Rights in Latin America explores the tensions underlying a vast range of human rights initiatives. In addition to surveying the roles of the United States, relatives of the disappeared, and truth commissions, Cardenas covers newer ground in addressing the colonial and ideological underpinnings of human rights abuses, emerging campaigns for disability and sexuality rights, and regional dynamics relating to the International Criminal Court. Engagingly written and fully illustrated, Human Rights in Latin America creates an important niche among human rights and Latin American textbooks. Ample supplementary resources-including discussion questions, interdisciplinary reading lists, filmographies, online resources, internship opportunities, and instructor assignments-make this an especially valuable text for use in human rights courses.


The initial electric field distribution in soil is fundamental to the prediction of lightning caused breakdown to underground cables. The effect of electric fields due to direct lightning strikes on ground to underground cables were showed in the form of the safety depth of buried cables, the impacting current to cables and the overvoltage dropped XLPE insulator cable. The electric field distribution is calculated in homogeneous soils and direct buried cables. The lightning strike current magnitude impacted to cable is evaluated using equivalent circuit model that used characteristic impedance of cable in soil instead of underground cable and soil resistance instead of soil ionized. ATP/EMTP is used to model and simulation for analysis the overvoltage between core and sheath by used the cable data in 22 kV and 33 kV distribution systems PEA, Thailand. The result shows that the safety depth of underground cable installation from lightning flash point, the lightning current magnitude that insulation puncture and the numbers of cables damage.


While teachers themselves may be born with a natural inclination to educate others, those who also administer graduate medical education (GME) must be amenable to a grueling learning process that no amount of talent can circumvent. Orientation to their many tasks is frequently by trial and error, assisted by homegrown guides or pieces of information gleaned from a variety of sources. GME administrators have multiple files for the accreditation process (ACGME? RRC? PIF? CAAR? IRD? ARGGGH!*) and the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP). (When do we have to return our agreements to the NRMP? Is there a handbook for students, similar to the institutional handbook?) They struggle with developing a housestaff manual that contains all the required items and a few that are useful but optional. GME administrative staff are responsible for orienting resident physicians to the institution, the program department, and related departments; for helping residents enter and exit


A sustainable rapid microwave-solvothermal (MW-ST) synthesis approach has been successfully demonstrated to develop thiospinel NiCo2S4 nanocrystals and their nanohybrids with graphene nanosheets (GNS) using transition metal-ions (Co2+, Ni2+) and thiourea as a sulfur precursor in the presence of graphite oxide (GO). The MW-ST method enables the nucleation and growth of cubic linnaeite-type thiospinel NiCo2S4 nanocrystals and simultaneous in situ ultra-fast polyol-reduction of GO to GNS and its hybridization within 15 min at 200 °C using ethylene glycol (EG) as the solvent. This process absolutely evades the use of toxic reducing agents or post solid-state sintering at elevated temperatures and subsequent sulphurization using toxic H2S/Na2S gases. The nanocrystallite aggregates (NCS-1)/GNS nanohybrid exhibited a remarkable electro-catalytic activity towards triiodide (I−/I3−) reduction owing to improved electronic conductivity and synergistic effects at NCS-1 and GNS interfaces. The developed NCS-1/GNS nanohybrid as a novel counter electrode (CE) for Pt-free dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) demonstrated a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.98% in comparison to the conventional Pt CE of 8.01% under the same conditions. Hence, this work presents a scalable synthesis of an earth-abundant, thiospinel NiCo2S4/GNS nanohybrid CE via a facile single-step MW-ST process as a potential alternative to expensive Pt as a CE in DSSCs and other electrochemical clean energy systems.


Background: During the last decades, the interest of health professionals increases continuously towards the assessment and the fulfillment of the patients' needs. The aim of the present study was review the literature about the needs of hospitalized patients.Methods and material: The method of this study included bibliography research from both the review and the research literature which carried out internationally mainly over the last five years and referred to the needs of the hospitalized patients.Results: According to the literature, there are many definitions proposed for the "need" due to its' inherent complexity. The "patients' need" is a dynamic concept that changes over time and the disease progression. A commonly held view is that the "patients' need" varies accordingly to the spirituality and cultural traditions of the patients. The majority of studies showed that the main needs of hospitalized patients are: confidence, communication, information, education, self-care, and support. Undermining or not assessing needs of hospitalized patients exerts a negative influence on the outcome of the disease and imposes a tremendous financial burden on the National Health System in each country. Recent research has confirmed patients' desire and expectations to participate in their care.Conclusions: Understanding the importance of assessing needs of hospitalized patients should prompt health professionals to provide efficient care for patients. The gap between patients' health needs and the services offered merit further research.


Using H2 as a reductant, catalytic hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) is typically used for upgrading bio-oils, generally produced from thermal degradation of lignin. In our recent prior work, methane was used to deoxygenate guaiacol over the Pt–Bi catalyst and was found to exhibit as good deoxygenation performance as hydrogen. In the present work, using methane as a reductant, detailed reaction pathways and kinetics of guaiacol deoxygenation are studied using differential and integral operating conditions. Kinetic parameters including rate constants and activation energies are determined for each individual reaction step. The model predicted values match experimental data well. Results from the present work are discussed and compared with the literature values. The present work provides a practical novel approach for bio-oil upgrading using methane as a reductant instead of hydrogen.


We study a number of variants of an abstract scheduling problem inspired by the scheduling of reclaimers in the stockyard of a coal export terminal. We analyze the complexity of each of the variants, providing complexity proofs for some and polynomial algorithms for others. For one, especially interesting variant, we also develop a constant factor approximation algorithm.


The relationship between unions and their members is an important, yet neglected, subject in recent studies of the sociology of work. This study develops and tests a theory of union satisfaction and participation that combines recent research in the sociology of work with previous explanations of union satisfaction and participation provided by industrial relations researchers, in an attempt to understand the relationship between unions, plants, jobs, and workers in U.S. manufacturing industries. This theory predicts that union members will be satisfied with their unions and participate more in them if there are extensive ties between workers, employers, and unions. These ties stem from the focus of labor/management relations in particular, and class struggles in general, on market outcomes and the historical linkage of union membership with employment in the United States. The theory also predicts that unions themselves act as ties to specific work settings and that union participation is a forum for voicing dissatisfaction with specific characteristics of workers' jobs. Testing these predictions is complicated by the contradictory nature of the structure and organization of work in advanced industrial societies. The analysis provides qualified support for this theory, with data drawn from more unions, plants, and union members than have been used to date. In addition to discussing modifications to the theory and analysis presented here, the study includes a discussion of its implications for the future of unionization and the organization of work, in light of declines in union membership, increased efforts to decertify unions and resist union organizing efforts, and deindustrialization in the United States.


Wind power generation does, on the one hand, contribute to a less polluting and more sustainable electric power generation mix. On the other hand, the uncertainty and the variability of the power output do challenge the operation of the power system: hourly variations in wind power generation are hardly predictable in a precise way. To decrease the need for balancing power, it might be beneficial from the overall system-perspective to subject power generating companies to stricter balancing incentives/rules.The way the market is designed has become crucial to exploit the existing flexibility in the power system and to increase the efficiency in its operation: inappropriate market designs can counteract all technical achievements. The work conducted for this thesis is embedded in a project on wind power integration and electricity market design following the aim to develop a simulation tool to analyse the consequences of changes in specific market rules.This thesis analyses wind power variations and forecast errors in the Swedish power system and explores the question whether internal ex-ante self-balancing can efficiently reduce the need for balancing power. Applying internal ex-ante self-balancing, every power generating company re-schedules its own power plants in order to balance its commitments towards other market actors with its newest production forecast. This is done shortly before the hour of delivery.To assess the value of this self-balancing, possible trading and scheduling decisions for power generating companies are modelled based on a hydro-thermal generation portfolio within the framework of the Nordic electricity market design. The model is based on a sequence of mixed-integer linear optimisation problems for the clearing of the different sub-markets. Both the data and the model have an hourly time resolution. In a case study, the model is applied on a simplified test-system. The need of real-time balancing by the transmission system operator, the total variable generation cost of the system, as well as the extent to which the power generating companies re-scheduled their production are then used as indicators to evaluate self-balancing.


Abstract The two essential oils isolated from plants of hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis L. ssp. officinalis) grown in two different localities near Urbino (Marche, Italy) were analyzed by GC and GC/MS. The major components were pinocamphone (34% and 18.5%), isopinocamphone (3.2% and 29%) and β-pinene (10.5% and 10.8%). The major differences in the composition of the oils were detectable in the ratio of pinocamphone/isopinocamphone, in the percentage of linalool (0.2% and 7.9%) and camphor (0.3% and 5.3%). The oils showed antifungal activity against 13 strains of phytopathogenic fungi; the activity of the oil extracted from plants grown at 1000 m above sea level showed higher activity.


This article presents a cross-layered approach for networking in wireless sensor networks. WSNs differ greatly from traditional ad hoc wireless networks and therefore require the use of new types of network protocols that are energy-efficient to ensure a node lifetime of several years on a single battery and can operate without assistance of central managers in a dynamic network topology. We show that a tightly integrated set of networking protocols is a good solution to reach the target of highly energy-efficient WSNs. Our approach combines medium access organization with routing.


: In 42 patients with pathology of face cranium tracheal intubation was performed by different methods--intubation with artificial jet high frequency lung ventilation (I+AJHFV) and fiber optic intubation (FOI). It was established that more favourable conditions for intubation were created when I+AJHFV was used. FOI with preserved consciousness and spontaneous breathing in patients with pathology of maxillofacial region reduces the time factor significance but demands significant sedative preparation of the patient.


In this correspondence, the authors study the performance of multi-user transmitter preprocessing (MUTP)-assisted cooperative downlink (DL) transmission for multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) system, where multi-user interference (MUI) and inter-relay interference (IRI) are the principal channel impairments. Relaying is facilitated with the aid of fixed infrastructure-based relays that perform additional signal processing like formulating the preprocessing matrix for mitigating MUI in addition to forwarding the information they receive from the base station (BS). Specifically, in this study, the authors analyse the performance of cooperative communication-aided DL MC-CDMA system by employing three cooperation strategies: (i) all users supported by a single relay with dominant MUI at the relay and mobile stations (MSs); (ii) each user supported by a single relay where, MUI and IRI are dominant at the relays and MSs, respectively, as well as weak IRI at the MSs; and (iii) all users supported by L relays where MUI is dominant at the relays, and MUI and IRI are dominant at the MSs. Our simulation study shows that MUTP-aided cooperative DL transmission results in better achievable bit error rate than the multi-user detection-aided system as the MUI at the relays and MUI and IRI at the MSs are perfectly eliminated.


ABSTRACT Despite the benefits of exercise, a large percentage of the older population in South Africa continue to lead sedentary lifestyles. This study aimed to determine the effects of a structured group exercise programme on functional fitness of older persons living in old-age homes. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare the effects of a 12-week group exercise programme. Twenty participants each were selected from five old-age homes. Participants were randomly allocated into either an experimental group or a comparison group at each site. The experimental group participated in the exercise intervention three times weekly, while the comparison group received the same intervention twice weekly for 12 weeks. The intervention programme included warm-up, balance, endurance, resistance and cool-down components. Assessments of upper and lower body strength and flexibility, aerobic endurance, agility and balance were conducted before and after the intervention programme using the Senior Functional Test. Comparisons of baseline and post-intervention measures showed greater improvements in upper and lower body strength and flexibility, as well as aerobic endurance capacity (p < 0.05). Training frequency revealed no significant difference in functional fitness measures between both groups following the 12-week intervention programme. Twelve weeks of multifaceted group exercise training, at least twice a week, can be used as an effective strategy to promote functional fitness in this population.


i) The regions' boundaries having the same mechanical properties are detected with a new mechanical criterion based on a comparison of the experimental and calculated stress distributions. Both distributions are obtained with homogeneous elastic properties either from the measured displacements or from a complete finite element (FE) simulation, respectively. The heterogeneity only affects the measured displacement field. ii) A cost function defined as the distance between experimental and a finite elements displacement fields is minimized for finding the elastic properties of the different regions. Minimization is performed with two algorithms: Levenberg-Marquardt ([3, 4]) and Covariance Matrix Adaptation- Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES, [5]). In order to reduce the computation time, an alternative approach is considered for this step: the Virtual Fields Method ([6, 7]). This study is a numerical validation of the method. Using finite elements, we model the deformation of a cross section of the carotid artery between diastole and systole (variation of the blood pressure of about 5 kPa), assuming linear elasticity and plane strain. The plaque is made of an inclusion surrounded by material having the same properties as the carotid wall. The blood pressure onto the wall is assumed to be uniform. The displacement field provided by a FE model of the artery with a single inclusion is used as pseudo-experimental data of our inverse method (figure 2). We focus on the case of a single heterogeneity in a matrix representing the healthy part of the artery (figure 1). A high ratio, r, between the Young moduli of the artery and the inclusion is assumed (typically r = Ematrix=Eheterogeneity = 50), and the materials are assumed to be almost incompressible (nheterogeneity = nmatrix = 0:49).


Atomically thin semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have unique mechanical and optical properties. They are extremely flexible and exhibit a strong optical absorption at their excitonic resonances. Excitons in TMDC monolayers are strongly influenced by mechanical strain. Their energy shifts and even their line widths change. In bilayers, intralayer excitons with electrons and holes residing in the same layer also shift their energy with the applied strain. Recently, interlayer excitons with electrons and holes in different layers have been observed in bilayer MoS2 at room temperature. Here, we report on the behavior of interlayer excitons in bilayer MoS2 under uniaxial tensile strain of up to 1.6%. By recording the differential transmission spectra for different strain values, we derive a gauge factor of -47 meV per % for the energy shift of the interlayer exciton, which is similar to -49 meV per % for the intralayer A and B excitons. Our finding confirms the origin of the interlayer exciton at the K point in the Brillouin zone, with the electron located in one layer and the hole delocalized over two layers. Furthermore, our work paves the way for future straintronic devices based on interlayer excitons.


Before the discovery of oil in the late 1960s, Oman was one of the poorest countries in the world, with only six kilometers of paved roads and one hospital. By the late 1970s, all that had changed as Oman used its new oil wealth to build a modern infrastructure. In the Time of Oil describes how people in Bahla, an oasis town in the interior of Oman, experienced this dramatic transformation following the discovery of oil, and how they now grapple with the prospect of this resource's future depletion. Focusing on shifting structures of governance and new forms of sociality as well as on the changes brought by mass schooling, piped water, and the fracturing of close ties with East Africa, Mandana Limbert shows how personal memories and local histories produce divergent notions about proper social conduct, piety, and gendered religiosity. With close attention to the subtleties of everyday life and the details of archival documents, poetry, and local histories, Limbert provides a rich historical ethnography of oil development, piety, and social life on the Arabian Peninsula.


Lichens are complex associations composed of mycobiont and one or more algae or cyanobacteria which are living in symbiosis. Lichens are thought to possess therapeutic effects on many illnesses in worldwide. This study was performed to investigate antioxidant, anti-elastase and anti-urease activities of Usnea longissima Ach lichen. U. longissima was extracted with ethanol and ethyl acetate solvents. The antioxidant activities of the extracts of U. longissima were determined with methods such as 1,1-diphenyl-2- picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity, 2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS) radical scavenging activity, copper reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC), total antioxidant capacity, determination of total phenolic content and total flavonoid contents. The binding action of the DPPH and ABTS radicals, CUPRAC activity increases with concentration of the extracts. Ethanol extracts exhibited higher anti-urease and anti-elastase activity. Highest inhibition was found as 49.86% for elastase and 18.38% for urease. Results of the present study suggest that U. longissima extracts can be an alternative to synthetic antioxidant, anti-elastase and anti-urease agents.